


The Meaning of Comrade

by Toyu



Series: Their Phantom Moments [9]
Category: Jormungand (Manga), Phantom of Inferno (Video Game), Phantom: Requiem for the Phantom
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-11
Updated: 2016-07-11
Packaged: 2018-07-23 01:42:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 671
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7461657
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Toyu/pseuds/Toyu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Observing the actions of a woman and a child solider during and after a mission, Ein discover's the meaning of something she never had before.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Meaning of Comrade

Ein first encounters the woman during a mission in southern Africa, the guards of the complex falling to her sniper rifle and the knives of said eccentric woman with a eyepatch. She hears the firing of a pistol then footsteps rapidly approaching behind her, and whirls onto her back to face the approacher. A young African boy with white hair, the size of a child and carrying a sniper rifle of his own, a body on the ground behind him is what she sees. His red eyes don’t even notice Ein as he passes her, the rifle rising as the boy skids to a stop on the hill, a cry of “Valmet!” echoing in the aftersound of the various gun shots. He continues shouting as Ein looks through the scope at the knife-wielder, who has a expression of shock on her face while staring in her direction at the boy from the cover of one of the buildings.

The child solider continues shouting as Ein raises the tripod for the sniper rifle and puts on the shoulder strap for the weapon, passively watching the woman pause in her resumed slaughter of the guards at the boy’s cry.

“What’s taking you so long?”

The sweat drenched boy lifts the gun into the air with another cry, saying “I’ve got your back! Go hunt down the boss! Run! Run, Valmet!”

A near-devilish smile of excitement appears on the knife-wielding Valmet’s face before she disappears into the inside of the building. No more than five minutes later she reemerges from the building itself, electing a small yet obviously cheerful gasp from the boy who drops the gun and runs towards Valmet. “Mission complete.” Ein mummers into her earpiece before walking back up the slope towards the car she had used to reach the site.

* * *

 

She encounters them both later that same day in her civilian attire, the boy’s clumsy fingers slowly and accurately applying emergency aid to the gunshot wounds on Valmet’s back, the bleeding but alive body of another female lying nearby.

“Why are you helping her?” Ein asks, playing the part of the civilian who knew nothing but the bare minimum of preventing blood loss as she applies pressure to Valmet’s back by pressing the boy’s rumpled shirt to the wound.

The boy pauses in his one-handed work on the other woman, a flip-phone being dialed in the other as he looks up at her with a bland expression before answering and returning to his work.

“Because… Valmet’s my comrade. And…”  
He does not raise his head before speaking, although he gives a nod towards the rusted sign a few yards behind him that reads Bus Stop in faded letters. “…You should move on, it’s not safe here.”

Ein nods her head and stands up, shifting the weight of her backpack that held her gear and spare clothing from the abandoned car she had parked in the desert country side.  The bus arrives at the bus stop she waits at a few minutes later, taking her away from the nameless boy and his so-called comrades with a hiss of steam as the doors close. No less than five minutes or so into the bus drive back to the hotel, a helicopter roars overhead in the opposite direction, the rotation of the blades echoing the word the boy had spoken. Comrade, com-rade, com-rade.

Less than a few days after the mission and returning to the loft in Los Angelos, she finds him, the person who Scythe deemed interesting enough to make into another copy of her. A person who, with enough training would become her equal in combat, a comrade who had her back in the dark bloodstained world she lived in. The idea of Zewi becoming her comrade is swift to fade away as she returns to her Master’s side, a tool for him and the organization he served. Even so, the single word beats on in time to her heart, the only sound that comforts her in her nightly dreams half-asleep….


End file.
